Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday June 07, 2012 @08:46AM
from the algorithms-please dept.

Dangerous_Minds writes "ZeroPaid is documenting some comments made by an encrypted chat developer who was interrogated at the U.S. border recently. According to the CryptoCat developer, border guards confiscated his passport and interrogated him about the application he developed. Most notably, he commented, "The interrogator (who claimed 22 years of computer experience) asked me which algorithms Cryptocat used and about its censorship resistance.""

According to the CryptoCat developer, border guards confiscated his passport

Maybe I'm the only one that was confused by that but the phrasing of this in the summary lead me to believe that they confiscated his passport indefinitely in some sort of draconian move to prevent him from leaving the country or traveling in general. But, luckily, I read the article:

This [twitter.com]: “Also worth noting: my passport was confiscated for around an hour.”

I'm not saying it's okay but I've been pulled into secondary coming back from the Caribbean and, the customs official had my passport for about 45-60 minutes while he asked me the stupidest of questions (far more mundane and pointless than what algorithms I develop).

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. A secondary screening can take anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple of hours normally. It'll be much longer if they really think they have something on you. But going through an hour of the bureaucracy and questioning isn't something to really write a letter home about. A footnote, maybe, but not a letter.

Would the dev felt better if it was an hour of pointless and inane questions?

I've crossed the border between Russia and just about anywhere you can think of that shares a border with Russia. I have never ever been interrogated at their border. I've even crossed the Ukrainian Moldovan border with another individual who overstayed his visa for months. They barely asked any questions even then, they just walked him to a nearby bank and had him pay a fine (the fine is paid directly to the bank to prevent the possibility of the border guard pocketing it). I even overstayed my own visa while exiting Ukraine. I didn't even miss my flight.

People need to realize that the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment.

While I sympathize with the criticism of our government, I think it's a bit hyperbolic to call this "brutal", especially when the comparison is with Russia where protesters are routinely rounded up and will now be forced to pay fines up to $20,000 [latimes.com] for merely protesting the regime.

Actually, i have been maced (and not that baby stuff the police use) and tazered.

If you have to choose, always take the taze. It will only last for as long as a charge is being sent. The very moment the charge stops you have nearly full function again and there is no pain. You don't fall unconscious like they show in the movies. It merely makes you lose control of your body and you collapse.. it is an odd feeling.

Chemicals in the face suck and are designed to stick around. You can't just splash some water on your face and call it good. In fact, splashing water on your face will make it far far worse.

They're far more dangerous than most people realize: the checks and balances and legal avenues of appeal that US citizens are used to don't apply on the border for non-citizens. They can jail you indefinitely, subject to appeals from your native country if they wish. If your "native" country doesn't care (eg. you are an asylum seeker) you can rot in jail indefinitely.

Google whats happened to citizens of "former countries", for example. If you break the law in the US, you go to jail. Fair enough. Typically if you're not a US citizen you may be deported. What happens if your original country no longer exists, or won't take you? you can sit in jail indefinitely. There were several thousand in this position the last time a journalist investigated (oh, and FOIA requests are pretty hard here too).

I'm posting AC because I have relatives in the US in a similar position. They are in a small, Pacifist Christian sect. They left Ireland (sent to relatives in US) in the 1940s as children, less than 10 at the time; they are now retirees, and naturalized, but not US citizens: becoming citizens would mean swearing an oath to defend the US, which they will not do as pacifists. Their children are US citizens and don't have to swear this oath.

Now, they have to be careful: their children are active in the antiwar movement and have frequently been arrested on protests. Small, non-violent stuff. But if they go near a protest, they risk being arrested: they will be deported "back home" after they have paid the fine, etc. They are in their 70s and don't ever remember Ireland, never mind have friends and relatives there. Any small infringement: traffic violation, etc. can ruin their lives, on the whim of an ICE official.

So when you see that nice American granny in your neighborhood, upstanding member of the community, don't imagine they don't live in fear of arbitrary "American Justice".

Some things in your story don't pass my BS test as an immigrant from Canada preparing to Naturalize in a year or so...

naturalized, but not US citizens

Naturalization [wikipedia.org] means to become a citizen of a country other than by means of birth. Hence, you can't naturalize and not be a citizen by definition. Did you mean they were / are lawful permanent residents?

becoming citizens would mean swearing an oath to defend the US, which they will not do as pacifists.

In certain circumstances there can be a modification or waiver of the Oath of Allegiance. These circumstances are as follows:

If you are unable or unwilling to promise to bear arms or perform noncombatant service because of religious training and belief, you may request to leave out those parts of the oath. USCIS may require you to provide documentation from your religious organization explaining its beliefs and stating that you are a member in good standing.

If you are unable or unwilling to take the oath with the words “on oath” and “so help me God” included, you must notify USCIS that you wish to take a modified Oath of Allegiance. Applicants are not required to provide any evidence or testimony to support a request for this type of modification. See 8 CFR 337.1(b).

USCIS can waive the Oath of Allegiance when it is shown that the person’s physical or developmental disability, or mental impairments, makes them unable to understand, or to communicate an understanding of, the meaning of the oath. See 8 USC 337.

Frankly, USCIS is remarkably accepting here, and if it was brought up to an immigration officer I'm certain they'd advise your parents of the possibility of a modified Oath. So either your parents don't know about this, are assuming it can't be modified, and haven't tried, or your whole story is fabricated.

If you are unable or unwilling to promise to bear arms or perform noncombatant service because of religious training and belief, you may request to leave out those parts of the oath. USCIS may require you to provide documentation from your religious organization explaining its beliefs and stating that you are a member in good standing.

If you are unable or unwilling to take the oath with the words âoeon oathâ and âoeso help me Godâ included, you must notify USCIS that you

One could argue that atheism was one's "religion", and provide a self-written document stating as such (I'd personally give it about a 50/50 shot depending on the immigration officer). Yes, I think it could be clearer, and if they do actually refuse citizenship to pacifist atheists for this reason, the ACLU should get involved.

A small technicality, but if have "naturalized" in the US, you are a naturalized US citizen. If you have not become a US citizen, but have the visa to live in the US on a permanent basis (via a "green-card"), you are technically called a permanent resident.

When I hear about situations like this (e.g., permanent residents that do not wish to return to their country of origin, nor become US citizens). I don't really feel sorry for them. Like everyone in live we make choices and many times, those choices have consequences, and sometimes it is a choice between the lesser of two evils.

Very few groups respond positively to criticism from outside, why not join us and complain from the inside? I say to such folks, you live in one of the few countries in the world where it is fairly easy (although slowly) to become a citizen. If you really want to own your life, join with us. Then you can gripe with us about our government and vote your choice, rather than scold us with one foot out-of-the-door with a "holier-than-thou" chip on your shoulder...

If someone objects to taking the "modified" oath (as allowed by law and listed below), then I suggest that they don't believe in our constitution, have no desire to support the people of our country more than a typical random joe in a random country in the world, or more likely are just being difficult on purpose to set themselves apart for some personal reason... That's a choice you are free to make, but don't expect the US to help...

I hereby declare, and solemnly affirm, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.

If you're thinking "their children can protest if they pay the fine, why can't they", you're thinking about it the wrong way.

I think you as well. Protesting shouldn't be illegal, and a citizen of the US should never be fined for doing it. If you are on private property then it is tresspassing. If your activity is unsafe or otherwise disrupts other's lawful activites, there are other relevant charges. But protesting in the USA should always be legal for US citizens. Now, I'd rather see protesting be legal f

Except that the restrictions on even peaceful protest in the united states has exceeded a reasonable level. Protesting outside of a 'designated zone' (which will be so far away from what you are attempting to protest as to be effectively censorship of your statement); arrest.

Failure to identify your intent to protest; arrest.

Challenge a politician with a non-vetted question during a presentation at a public location- fine+removal, refuse to leave; arrest.

What's really bad is that this is all true only for some protesters, and not others. If you're protesting a politician or some big politically-connected corporation or something, then the above is what happens to you. However, if you're picketing at a soldier's funeral and saying he deserved to die because "God hates fags", then you're A-OK and the cops won't bother you at all. If the cops are going to harass protesters, they could at least have the decency to harass the Westboro assholes too.

However, if you're picketing at a soldier's funeral and saying he deserved to die because "God hates fags", then you're A-OK and the cops won't bother you at all. If the cops are going to harass protesters, they could at least have the decency to harass the Westboro assholes too.

Yeah, but don't forget that these Westboro shitheads are basically the real life equivalent of internet trolls. As such, the proper response if you want them to go away (and I think we do) is to ignore them. Arresting them just makes them martyrs and puts their name in yet more papers.

I'm not saying that ignoring them is the morally right thing to do here, just the smartest.

I don't know about that. Internet trolls have a different motivation: they want attention. I think there's a saying something like "negative attention is better than no attention"; we see it with children all the time, they'll misbehave just to get attention if their parents aren't paying any attention to them. Internet trolls are basically like children this way (and in fact, many are children/teenagers). If they can stir up a bunch of angry responses to their troll post, they've done their job. I rem

Protesting in a way that results in a fine is not something you are supposed to do at all

When the government doesn't respect your right to peaceably assemble, how else are you supposed to protest?

The only protests worth participating in are the ones that could actually change something. Those are the protests that the government will fight with all of its power. That power includes arresting protesters for simply protesting. This is what we saw happen last fall from NY to Oakland.

Think of it this way, if Mubarak had tried to forcibly clear Tahrir square with the excuse of "health and safety", the international community wouldn't have bought that excuse for a second. Yet the US is allowed to get away with claiming "health and safety" as a reason to break up peaceable assembleys like Occupy. And nobody bats an eye.

If you could trust the government to follow the rule of law, you'd have a point. But we're far, far past that point.

That power includes arresting protesters for simply protesting. This is what we saw happen last fall from NY to Oakland...Think of it this way, if Mubarak had tried to forcibly clear Tahrir square with the excuse of "health and safety"...

Look, I'm all for the right to protest, and I'm all for civil disobedience that might get you arrested to bring attention to an injustice. The Occupy protests were still stupid, and the police was in their right to remove them.

Here's how you make the determination. If it's illegal to do something (like putting up tents and sleeping in an area where this is generally not allowed), it doesn't suddenly become legal because it's part of a protest. That doesn't mean you don't do it, like I said, I'm in favor of civil disobedience as a form of protest. What you are protesting must be related to the laws your are disrespecting however.

Case in point, when Rosa Parks refused to get up to allow the white passengers to sit, she broke a law. That was, however, the law she was protesting against. The law itself was unjust. The only way that the civil disobedience of the Occupy protesters would have been valid would be if they were protesting laws against trespassing or the health codes that prevented them from being there. If they are in favor of those laws being enforced for people who are not protesting, then it is not legitimate for them to disobey them in a protest.

Just about every location gave them the right to protest, just not sleep there. They could go home and come back the next day, just not set up tents. They just felt it was more dramatic to put up tents and not move. Well, it's also more dramatic to set buildings on fire, but that doesn't mean they should be allowed to do it to make their point. Unless they think arson laws are unjust, that is.

Please. Police were ALSO going after Occupy protesters who were NOT squatting in tent cities, littering, urinating in public, using drugs, assaulting, etc.

The reason for the difference in treatment between Occupiers and Tea Partiers has everything to do with the groups' messages: Occupiers protest corporate power, Tea Baggers support corporate power. That's why one group gets to open carry and make death threats, and the other group gets truncheons and tear gas canisters to the face when they hold up signs.

This is revisionist it seems. There have been Tea Party protesters with police presence, only they did not keep an ongoing protest for weeks before police moved in.

Tea partiers didn't need to be disruptive to get the attention of the powerful. Their message -- complete and utter corporate control -- was already on the lips of every Republican on the hill. Even the very first Tea Parties were broadcast on national cable networks.

Occupy on the other hand was ignored by the media for weeks before the media r

> Protesting in a way that results in a fine is not something you are supposed to do at all

True, but that doesn't mean it's morally wrong. The fine may be unjustly imposed, for example, like the police who steered the protest onto the Brookyln Bridge and then arrested the protesters for protesting on the Brooklyn Bridge.

It says UPTO $20,000 and it's no different than the U.S. (Yes Occupy protesters have been fined by police.) This CryptoCat story reminds me of when a Campaign for Liberty (ronpaul) volunteer was detained by the TSA while traveling from St.Louis to D.C. They demanded to know why he was carrying over $4000 in cash. He refused to answer given that it was none of their business (plus the fact Missouri via the MIAC Report were holding CFL people as "potential terrorists").

The "Occupiers" were able to protest for many days or even months in many US cities. Some were arrested for disturbing the peace or for refusing to leave after *very* long time. According to Wikipedia, the protest in Boston lasted for over 70 days. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Boston [wikipedia.org] During that time 186 people have been arrested, with NO injuries.

There is no comparison to Russia, where people have been arrested and beaten in the streets with no justification at all. Some opposition leaders have been arrested right after leaving their houses, before they even got to a protests.

On a related note, in Russia people are protesting massive election fraud by the ruling party and massive corruption in all levels of government. I am still trying to figure out what exactly the "Occupiers" in the US are protesting against.

IMHO, there is no comparison between the occupy movement in the US and the protests in Russia.

People need to realize that the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment.

In my opinion and from experience it's not about brutality, it's about money. Sure, if they find something on you that links you to Al-Queda, you're in trouble. They'll treat you like any Allied nation would treat a Nazi war criminal. But the secondary that you're often pulled into has the primary purpose of tariffs and taxes that you might owe the government. Next on their list is export/import control of stuff like Cuban cigars or controlled substances.

So I used to be in a band and this band told me a story about how they were crossing the US-Canada border to play one show at a bar. Well, they were in their van, they had weed on them and they had all their guitars and crap and the side of their van said their band name. Well, they made up some excuse about how they were just "passing through" and after an hour of googling, the border guards determined that their intent was to play a show at a bar. They didn't have work permits and, as such, were denied entry. The weed wasn't a problem. The problem was that they were trying to go "work" at a bar and, as a result, a bar owner became very very upset with them. Guess which country's border guards did this to them? Canada's. Is Canada a "very brutal regime"? No.

What happened with the CryptoCat guy is that they asked him what he did for work and he got too specific. One of the guards apparently knows that there is export control on levels of encryption [wikipedia.org]. There was a very very famous case about this involving Phil Zimmerman and PGP [wikipedia.org] that I think has since been dropped. Of course, the guards came to the conclusion that this guy wasn't purposefully exporting high level encryption software to enemy entities. So nothing came of it after they googled for an hour.

Just because Russian border guards are lax or corrupt doesn't mean "the United States has a very brutal regime in charge at the moment." 'Brutal' means savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel... I think the words you were looking for are arcane, ignorant, laughable, annoying, etc. If you cry wolf at the stupid stuff, nobody's going to listen to you about the genuinely bad stuff.

"Brutal" is perhaps a little extreme: "Authoritarian" may be more appropriate.

I also have an anecdote. I moved to the US in 1994, and at one time, maybe I overstayed my visa-waiver, or maybe the I-94 was lost, either by me or the airline or US Immigration. In 1995 I got an H1-B and I've had a Green Card now for over 10 years. Every time since 9/11 it's a toss-up when I go through Immigration to enter the US whether the the DHS will Select me for Secondary Screening, even though I am a legal, documented im

Why? Instead, he should just stay in his home country, or if he doesn't like it there, he should emigrate to some other country. There's lots of industrialized countries now that are much better to emigrate to than the USA. There's a reason that hordes of US Citizens are leaving the country now, and many renouncing their citizenship. Just google for "expat"; there's probably far more American expats than any other nationality, and the numbers are rising fast as this ship sinks.

In my opinion and from experience it's not about brutality, it's about money

Since you mentioned Nazis: money was one of the factors that drove the Nazi regime too. The question in both cases is: at what point do the insane ideologists take over (look at the Republican candiates for 2012...)? So it's not like it being about money at this time means we're not going in an entirely wrong direction. Regarding "brutal" - what would you call gitmo, all the secret CIA prisons, mass killing of suspects (as ordered by the president)? It's not something that affects us at the border controls

I suppose you have never heard the song by Timur Shaov about crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine...

Going back to the facts, any time you try to enter a foreign country there is a chance that you may be interrogated, or even refused entry for any reason. This does not make a regime "brutal" in any way.

On the other hand, in Russia you need a "registration" to be allowed to stay in Moscow, even if you are a Russian citizen. And police can stop you on the street and arrest you or extort money from you if you do not have the registration. You might want to ask the migrant workers from Central Asia about that. I have never heard of any sort of registration being required for staying in Washington DC or New York City.

By the way, do you own a car in Russia? How many times did you have to pay a bribe to the police?

Asking questions is such a hostile act. I don't know how my predecesors dealt with such abuse! It's downright inhumane I tell you. Such brutality must be stamped out everywhere.

Let me follow...
Ukrainian border security underpaid, uninterested, and don't do their jobs. Therefore, this is the right way to do things.
US border security actually does something, like ask questions (omg). Therefore they're being brutal.

I've crossed the border between Russia and just about anywhere you can think of that shares a border with Russia. I have never ever been interrogated at their border. I've even crossed the Ukrainian Moldovan border with another individual who overstayed his visa for months. They barely asked any questions even then, they just walked him to a nearby bank and had him pay a fine (the fine is paid directly to the bank to prevent the possibility of the border guard pocketing it). I even overstayed my own visa while exiting Ukraine. I didn't even miss my flight.

If you accept that as normal there is something wrong with either you or your country. This wasn't bureaucracy, it was police state tactics.

I travel from country to country all the time and have never been detained for longer than about 45 minutes, and that was just queuing. I stopped going to the US when they started treating travelers like convicts some years back. As far as I can tell instead of getting better the situation just keeps getting worse. It's a shame really as I would love to go shopping and

I've been pulled aside as well, took about 30 minutes of answering pointless questions. That was a random check though, or maybe the guy just didn't like my face. The question here is: was this guy singled out because of his work on CryptoCat, or was he randomly pulled out of line, with the questions arriving at some point at the work he's doing? "Why are you here? Where did you depart from? Was the trip for business or pleasure? What line of work are you in?" At this point, the guy might have brought up the crypto stuff, after which the interviewer focussed on that.

My guess is that as soon as they asked even slightly related question, the guy just could not stop himself from bragging about how he helps poor oppressed citizens keep their conversations private from teh evil regime. Of course they would focus on that.

I've heard this "they'll scan my harddrives" a lot, but I don't think it will happen. I know quite a few industrial researchers who visit the US every now and then, and their laptops have 1TB harddrives that are fully encrypted. As long as there are people who want to travel to/from the US carrying proprietary business information, harddrive inspections will never happen.

It's obviously not practical to scan all, but nothing to stop them running a lottery system. Pick a small number (One in a hundred?) of laptops at random and subject them to the search machine, which would obviously have to be something simple enough to run with minimal training. Perhaps a list of SHA hashes for known 'suspicious' files like terrorist training, drugs production manuals, pirate files, DRM-breakers and pornography. All the inspector need do then is plug in the bootable USB scanner, get the de

You are confusing the US for China.. Business here indeed have a rule of bringing only clean laptops into mainland China, since there were many incidents of hard drives being cloned by border security guards. Not so much in the US, although there have been incidents of government espionage beneficial to the US airplane manufacturers.

It seems border crossings have become a point at which the usual rules are thrown out of the window and anyone can be interrogated about anything.

Perhaps it's exactly about this. Maybe the entire idea is to terrorize ordinary people crossing the borders so these people would rather modify their own behavior, and quit exercising all those pesky freedoms.

Although I'd be hard-pressed to consider an hour-long secondary screen to be terrifying. Annoying and maddening, yes, but terrifying, no.

Yeah, and if a government rep. spent just 30 seconds on Google to find an article accusing this person of espionage due to Trojans embedded in his software, which led to his arrest and imprisonment as he crossed the border, even though his software has no such defect, would your comment be, "Just talk to the guy and let him defend himself! Not everything one reads on the internet is fact, government idiots."?

In all fairness, that Minesweeper cert is a hard one. I'm not going to tell you how many times I failed that exam before finally passing. I mean, you never really know where to start, and often you just end up guessing and hoping you get it right.

From reading the article, it sounds more like a routine stop where they ask you dozens of rather pointless questions just to keep you talking. The goal is to see if you have your story straight. They will ask the questions in such a way as to trip you up if you're not telling the truth.

Chances are they asked about what the guy does for a living and he brought up Cryptocat himself. It was an unusual security-related thing so the officer focused on that for questioning to see if he would say something suspicious.

The purpose of the interrogation wasn't to obtain information. It was intimidation. The DHS is delighted that it's receiving so much attention, too. It puts foreigners on notice that if they create software, protocols, or whatever which the US government finds inconvenient, they risk retaliatory harassment at the border should they choose to visit.

So, while I agree that a lot of what the DHS (and many other three-letter government agencies) does is a waste of money, I think it's also much worse than that.

t the DHS (and many other three-letter government agencies) does is a waste of money, I think it's also much worse than that.

Security is serious business (and money) and the DHS, TSA do a great job inciting anti-americanism and thus keeping the money flowing to the right corporations. The USA got rich by being a free country, now they (well, some) get even richer by doing the opposite. Isn't capitalism great?

Sorry sir, but your application has been denied. If we followed your suggestions we would not need to horas, torture, or bother anyone. Then everyone would forget what DHS stands, we would loose funding and become an irrelevant agency like BATF.

Again thank you for your time, please see BOB on the way our for your complementary cavity search.

Honestly, it sounds more like a routine stop where the guard was just curious. The questions about types of algorithms and censorship resistance are the sorts of questions I'd expect from someone who (personally) hadn't heard of it but thought it sounded pretty cool. Imagine if you were a nerd and somebody told you they worked on a crypto system you'd never heard of - what questions would you ask? I know I would ask similar questions, not for anything nefarious but just because being a border guard must be

Actually he is not only arabic, his background ( for which I could be mistaken ) is shiite muslim ( but he may not be religious ). In lebanon, the largest shiite parties are anti-american like Hizbollah and Amal.

Actually he is not only arabic, his background ( for which I could be mistaken ) is shiite muslim ( but he may not be religious ). In lebanon, the largest shiite parties are anti-american like Hizbollah and Amal.

While we should give them the benefit of the doubt because it might very well be a pure coincidence. However when I think about my own experience, I can't help and refute that. I have been "randomly" chosen so many times, that now I think they have a very biased random screening process. I almost get picked for extra screening almost every time I travel ( and I do travel frequently ). My background could be a factor, I come from the same country as our crypto friend, but from the north and if you were following the news lately there have been a lot of it in the city of Tripoly ( the city where I grew up in ). And we have some extremist that you can comfortably link them to Al-Qaeda.

I never said I am fine with it. But I don't understand the problem. Do you want my post to be full or ranting and caps lock to emphasis my complete and utter anger of this ?
In these situations you should keep calm, no reason for you to be agitated as they will use this against you. However that doesn't mean you should be polite. In one incident, I told the interrogator to go hang himself upside down by the testicles after he asked a very stupid question ( the funny part his partner laughed his ass off ) bu

Do you want my post to be full or ranting and caps lock to emphasis my complete and utter anger of this ?

No, but your previous post started out with "giving them the benefit of the doubt" which I think at this point is completely unjustified and seemed to really take the edge off of whether you found the singling out offensive or not. IMO, natch.

I don't look arabic, I have European background, 3 of my grandparents are Greek and one is from Iceland and unfortunately I am whiter than snow. But my name is arabic and would give the false impression that I am a mulsim as well.

No I do not expect them to differentiate and that is a complete fair criticism , but are you telling me that a person coming from a background that is very hostile to the US, and specializes in a domain that would hinder intelligence and information gathering wouldn't be permanently flagged for extra screening by some agency ?

Depending upon how large the application is, it is generally faster to just ask a developer what sort of algorithms are in it as opposed to sitting down and reading through the source yourself. Same applies to pretty much any large code base when you want basic factual knowledge of it as opposed to implementation details.

Yeah well, I already sold my US retirement property. At the age of 34 I figured, I'd work another 6 years at the rate I'm going and retire comfortably. So instead of retiring to florida or arizona, I'm now winter retiring to Japan. They're happy to take my money, and my tourism.

Yeah, when the US government learns what encryption is used, they'll crack your code in no less than it the time it takes to brute-force a 128 bit secret-key cipher. (Curve25519 is the algorithm used.) Seriously, learn some cryptography before commenting on cryptography. The following is Burt Kaliski's description of how hard it is to crack this encryption:

Imagine a computer that is the size of a grain of sand that can test keys against some encrypted data. Also imagine that it can test a key in the amount of time it takes light to cross it. Then consider a cluster of these computers, so many that if you covered the earth with them, they would cover the whole planet to the height of 1 meter. The cluster of computers would crack a 128-bit key on average in 1,000 years.

The following is Burt Kaliski's description of how hard it is to crack this encryption:

Imagine a computer that is the size of a grain of sand that can test keys against some encrypted data. Also imagine that it can test a key in the amount of time it takes light to cross it. Then consider a cluster of these computers, so many that if you covered the earth with them, they would cover the whole planet to the height of 1 meter. The cluster of computers would crack a 128-bit key on average in 1,000 years.

Perhaps it's a competitor (or ex-girlfriend, or anyone else with a grudge) trying to get that company's site added to various blacklists. I'd think posting to Slashdot would be an above average site for doing that.

I wanted a stamp in my passport and they just wanted to wave me through. It took some convincing to get them to find the stamp and stamp my passport. Damn Czechs, so relaxed, they can't even have a violent revolution and civil war, just peacefully transfer governments and split the country.